The climate you speak of is true only in part of Arizona. Flagstaff is currently buried under snow. I was snowed on at the Grand Canyon the first time I went, and that was in late April several years ago… But Phoenix and Tucson are both snowless in the winter.

For those of us who have adapted to the weather, the heat is definitely on in the winter! I will be frozen when it’s 40 degrees out if I don’t have heat on!! Evap coolers are great when the humidity is low — we have one on our house and use it from whenever it gets toasty (April? May? depends on the year) until it gets humid (late June?). A/C in the summer is not great for the budget, but if you buy a house smartly (which direction it faces, where the windows are, etc.) and use fans, it’s not bad. Also wise not to buy a 2-story house or more house than you need. Taking advantage of the time-of-use plan and the equal year-round billing plan makes budgeting for climate control much simpler.

Housing here is super-cheap now because the housing market crashed harder here than in most places. You could buy my house for $185,000 right now, but we paid $320,000 for it. Construction was the largest piece of the economy until a few years ago…

There will soon be a vote on taxing food items because our budget is so far in the hole.

I do not like cold at all which is part of why I moved here, but the A/C in public places is so low in the summer (read: May through October) that I wear sweaters as much in summer as in winter

But it is a great area to grow your own food because the weather is pretty grower-friendly.